I’m Batman. That’s the sentiment you’ll walk away with after just minutes with Batman: Arkham City where, despite starting out as billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne; apprehended and processed as a “political prisoner” in the crime-riddled sandbox that is Arkham City, you’re left, literally, out in the cold with an entire city to traverse; criminals left and right of you, and with no real sense of what to do. That is until Wayne contacts his trusty life-partner, Alfred, and the Batwing flies by with an item drop no respectable Gotham-based crime-fighter should do without - a Bat suit. You’ll then suit up, unlock an Achievement reminding you you’re Batman and start gadgetising your way to whatever it is that’s brought Batman here in the first place.

And so after playing with the ball of string that is Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman, and deliberately being incarcerated as Bruce Wayne, the fruits of Batman’s plan come to a head: You’ve deliberately infiltrated Arkham City, a prison built within the slummiest areas of Gotham, by one Quincy Sharp - the former warden of Arkham Asylum who has, since that first incident, somehow become mayor of Gotham. But why?

Specifically, he has no idea what’s going on, but alarm bells started ringing when it was announced Hugo Strange was appointed warden of Arkham City; Strange being one of only a handful of people who know Bruce Wayne’s true identity is Batman (see what I did there). Thus the World’s Greatest Detective needs to do just that - detect. He needs to learn just why this monstrous place has been built, how the individual powers that be within it correlate, and just what all of this means for Gotham on the whole.

Arkham City is a sequel in its truest sense. Not because the game follows the same formula as the original with an updated story, but because Rocksteady understand that what they created with Arkham Asylum was a playground for people to exploit a series of systems, systems that turned you into Batman. And so Arkham City also does this; serving up a heady feast of gameplay ideas you can use from the outset and also accrue along the way. It shows there’s a progressive sense of design on the developer’s part when, instead of setting up a contextual stripping of your power, they’ve tapped into what, and who, Batman actually is.

Rather than having you chase the same upgrades again, the game gives them to you as soon as you have your suit. There’s also no mention, from a HUD sense, that you have these until you’re first on the trail of the Joker (pretty early on in the piece), but it means savvy players can start zipping their way around Arkham City like a pro. You’ll have Batarangs, Explosive Gel, your Grappling Hook, a remote-control Batarang and your Cryptographic Sequencer out of the box, and this alone shows just how much regard Rocksteady have for the idea of player-choice and ultimate freedom.

Of course the team would be remiss to avoid the concept of upgrades entirely, and as situations call for it, in a contextual story sense, Batman will earn more gadgets while a very light RPG system sees you collecting XP to gain access to new, unlockable Combat moves, armour upgrades and so on.

This system transfers to Catwoman as well, and even though you spend only around 10-percent of the game as her, you can still apply all XP accrued through her, to Batman, and vice-versa. The whole system is hardly a dent in your day, and is fairly automated barring your choice when it comes to what to upgrade, or how you’ll earn XP in the first place. For the most part, being a successful Batman or Catwoman is really all that’s needed - take out collections of baddies; clear stealth arenas or solve Riddler puzzles for a consistent stream of XP, but you’ll also, obviously, earn larger chunks for completing major story objectives or side missions, alongside earning any of the aforementioned new item upgrades.

As structured as all of the above sounds, it’s not. Even the predator maps and combat challenges are more varied and diverse this time around, with some of the best AI in the business. But you’re also eventually equipped with even more to mess with them, such as an Electrically-charged projectile you can use to shoot generators and activate a positive or negative magnetic charge. So, waiting in the shadows for an unsuspecting goon to patrol near one, and shoot it so it magnetises his weapon and knocks him off his feet, never gets old. However, as mentioned before, these guys are smart, and will quickly shoot said generators to take away your fun and help themselves from looking quite the fool at the hands of The Bat.

They’ll also now shoot out your precious gargoyles, or be more thorough when trying to locate you after you take one of them down. Their responses to what’s going on are far more dynamic too, which is no mean feat considering how good they were in Arkham Asylum. There’s also a persistent sense of progression riddled throughout the game-world. You’ll overhear many conversations in your Arkham City travels thanks to Batman’s eves-dropping prowess (which should be used to help you discover the game’s myriad secrets and goodies), but aside from being clued into the workings of the game’s underworld or its aforementioned treasures, you’ll constantly be reminded of how well you’re doing, and just how much you’re striking fear into the hearts of evildoers. It’s quite empowering.

Beyond being there to practice your combat on, or take out stealthily, the enemy is also the life of the world. Their conversations, as mentioned before, bring Arkham City to life and give you different flavours of the city based on where you are. Watching them idly is also an excellent way to not only see the character Rocksteady injected into the game, but to also have a laugh. One instance saw me investigating a murder from a sniper - pretty serious business. In the background, however, two inmates were swinging their weapon -- a leadpipe -- at rocks on the ground as if they were playing golf, replete with one guy setting up the rocks for the other guy to swing at.

Having such unpredictable AI, and the various gameplay and treasure systems in place, also means Arkham City is rife with emergent gameplay. Rocksteady’s strength here lies in a few factors, but it’s most notably the size of the game-world and its multiple tiers of play. Having such a vertical world has allowed the developer to exploit what being Batman is about - perched high above the turmoil, it’s easy for the Dark Knight to pick his spots and tactically approach everything, but part of being Batman is being prepared, and alongside his superior fighting skills are his traversal abilities, the kind that put Ezio and Altair to shame.

In fact, it’s once you learn to use his Grapnel and gliding combination, the game-world design begins to truly shine, which sits snuggly alongside the emergent gameplay I just mentioned. You can stalk the streets, stoic and peremptory to inmates; taking them on at every turn, rescuing oppressed political prisoners or just leaving a message for all the other thugs of Arkham City, or you can take to the skies, like some ever-watching bird of prey, and move from point to point unhindered - as free as you like. Or you can combine the two, and decide mid flight you don’t like the sound of someone’s snarky anti-Batman remark, or hear the desperate cries of some victim you need to save, and thusly dive-bomb your way to them creating an impact zone and making an entrance like a boss. Boss Batman, as it were.

And that becomes the driving point of the game. Being Batman. There hasn’t been a superhero game, ever, to create such a feeling of ability and recourse; of strength and justice, with so much left up to the player to choose just how they’ll use all of this. Screw “with great power comes great responsibility”, how about “with Batman comes awesomeness, and then some”.

Batman: Arkham City is a perfect sequel, and a near-perfect action game. It’s stunning to look at (seriously, just watch the snow flakes hit his suit for a minute), plays as smooth as they come, offers an unprecedented sense of player-choice in an open-world, despite being caged in a makeshift prison, and harbors among the best voice-acting and scripting the Batman universe, and games, have ever seen. It’s dark, brooding and relentless in adult themes, yet requires no gore to relay any of this. And it just doesn’t stop. Once you’ve completed the game, Arkham City remains open to you and your gameplay devices to uncover all of its secrets (I can’t wait to visit Calendar Man on Halloween).

And then once you’ve had enough of all that, there are Challenge maps for combat and predator modes, Campaign Chapters for DLC characters, Concept Art, Character Trophies, Story Synopsis, Arkham City Stories, Profiles and oh-so-much more. I just hope there’s more coming in the way of campaign-specific DLC, because there’s still so much more Arkham City has to offer, even with all of the above, which should tell you why it’s an absolute no-brainer of a purchase and one of the best games of the year. Brilliant.

What we liked

Become The Batman

Brillant game-world and level-design

Looks stunning

Endless gliding opportunities create an entirely new way to traverse

Combat is expanded, and better for it

Excellent enemy AI creates a serious challenge

Emergent gameplay at its best

Great cast of characters and voice-acting

No hand-holding

So much to do even after finishing the main quest-line

What we didn't like

Minor camera issues here and there

Some cameos are a bit fleeting and needed more fleshing out (wishful thinking on my part though)

I ordered the PS3, CE version of arkham city from Game, but noticed they hadn't sent my order like normal. Wrote to them to ask whats up and they just sent me an email back with this.

Hi Richard, Our supplier has had a delay on the PS3 collectors version that has effected all retailers. We have sent to you the standard version that you can play and keep while you wait for us to receive and send out the collectors to you.

So not only do I get a CE version later on, but I get a free copy of the standard one now by the looks of it. Game, you are officially awesome.

Seems there's going to be a lot of people out there with a copy of both the std and CE version - any want to sell me the Std copy they got, so long as it has the DLC codes unused?
Figured that might be better to give the money to a QGL user than going and buying it from a store, in light of the whole secondhand games thread that came up the other day :P

Yeah I love the character and universe a lot, but I did go into this subjectively. You'll notice I barely touched on the story in the review, or any of the characters in the game, specifically, to try and cater the review to potential non-Batman fans. As a game, it's as good as anything else out there, it just happens to be about Batman.

DM, you playing on PS3? And what parts specifically do you find the camera a problem? I only ask because in certain scenarios the game slows down a bit to allow you the time to actually adjust the camera for your own benefit (namely combat)

Yeah I got the PS3 version. Well in general the camera seems to be always too far to the right unless you are crouching or aiming with something in which case it's fine. But the slow panning when walking/gliding around the city is what is mainly annoying me. Feels like it should be 1 level higher or something. I'm dealing with it though because so far those are the only things that i've found that i'm not happy with. Wonderful game.

I've played it for about 6 hours and I've only completed 8%. I'm usually pretty quick to quit and give up on games. The side missions and the flying activities are a pain in my a******* and it takes me forever to figure out where to go and what to do but I see myself having to finish this one... Just like what happened with Prince of Persia.

Maybe I've just been playing way too much AC2, but everything about that game I liked, including the controls.

I'm finding in Arkham City the following:
- Character will almost instantly but totally unintentionally do an about face
- No fluidity in being able to run towards an object and climb
- Flight mode isn't intuitive, requires reference to controls (it isn't just a case of pull up to pitch like in any other game).
- Often coming past an object where an action is available, a 'press x to blah' bit of text will appear for almost a frame, then disappear and you can't position the character to find it again - way too precise.

The very first thing I noticed on the intro screen was the lack of anti-aliasing (PS3), and low-quality looking edges.
And lastly, the dialogue, omg, oh so corny. There's a reason L.A. Noire was so good - because they paid a crapload for professional writers. I think Rocksteady might have missed the memo on that.
In the early missions (eg, getting to the top of the bell tower) the narrative is over-repeated way too often. Yes, I got that I need to get to the top of the bell tower after you said it the first 12 times while I was learning the controls.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a good game so far. But these things have jumped out as bleeding obvious in a short time of gameplay.

Raven you do know your playing on a piece of hardware nearly 6 years old right? Of course the lack of good anti-aliasing and low quality edging is going to appear. They can only do so much with the technology available, that's why they've delayed the PC date to make sure it looks superb.

I'm the opposite, AC2 was good, but I found all sorts of annoying things with the camera and the controls in that game, and seemed to always be jumping off into the middle of nowhere and falling off buildings. Arkham City on the other hand, I always feel 100% in control of what I'm doing. I dunno whats not intuitive about the gliding either, you can still pull down to pitch up, but you need to get some speed up first. So dive bomb, get some speed, pull up, repeat. When you get grapnel boost, use that to keep yourself going and regain some height. Its awesome, I can fly around pretty much the whole city now.

I'm not sure if they're counting PC, but I thought it'd be interesting to see how that steam sale potentially rewarded them (I was entirely planning on waiting until much later to buy this, but that sale was rad).

Very impressive! Considering they're talking about copies shipped though, and the PC version isn't out yet, I doubt it includes PC. Those sales figures almost never include Steam and other digital sales though, even if it was counting PC, it'd be counting physical copies sold.

AAARRRRGHGDLERHR controls in this game are driving me fricking insane.

X is the 'run' button. So I hold it to run up between two thugs, intending that when I reach them, I'll hit Triangle for a double-takedown.
No, game has other ideas - as I run past a door, it says "hey, you're near a door/corner - you can hide here - and X is the button from that."
So suddenly I go from running to suddenly stopped behind a corner of a door, as the guard then sees me and proceeds to shoot me from point-blank range.

More annoying is:
Okay, I know what i want to do here - glide-kick, get the guy to the ground, then R2, Triangle to knock him out.
So I glide down, get him to the ground, as Batman proceeds to take a few steps past him and R2 is out of range.
So the guard gets up, makes some noise, and calls all his buddies.

Yeah, same, I'm constantly glide kicking or dropping on people then doing the ground takedown. After the glide kick/drop hits, I just hold right trigger and start mashing Y (I'm on xbox) and he immediately follows up with a ground takedown, doesn't really seem to matter where I'm positioned. The combat system is pretty forgiving with regards to positioning I've found, often even if you're nowhere near the guy you're trying to take down, it'll still work, and you'll be moved over to him.

I love the beatdowns, thats probably one of my favourite moves, especially on the armoured guys where you just pummel the living s*** out of them. Quick firing the batclaw in combat and then clotheslining the guy as he get pulled towards you is another favourite. Oh and the powered up glide kick, where you hold down right trigger and spear into them and instantly take them down is pretty rad.

i love the combo special move where you call in the bats that circle you and disorientate everyone around you for a second

the only problem i've had with the controls and this isn't an actual issue with the controls it's just me being a spaz is gliding down behind sometimes in certain spaces i've ended up landing in front of them or something

Nah, I've spent heeeeeeeeeeeaps of time doing the riddles and finding the trophies and destroying cameras and balloons and every other thing. I've been neglecting the main storyline a little cos I keep getting distracted :P

Done a bunch of side missions too, finished all the AR missions, the Zsaz missions, the Azrael ones, the assassin one. I haven't finished the one where you find corpses with their faces cut off wrapped in bandages but I'm pretty sure that will be Spoiler:Hush

Rescued four of the Riddler's hostages too, but I need to solve more riddles and find more trophies to get the rest.

The game has soooooooooo much content, I never know what to do next, its awesome!

Yeah, some of the ones covered by mesh I still haven't figured out. A few things I discovered though (I'll spoiler them in case other people don't want to know)

Spoiler:Explosive gel sets off the question mark buttons, so if theres times where you need to hit a lot of question mark buttons in a time limit, but can't get to them all in time, you can put explosive gel on some and use that to push them. Also, the bits where theres buttons you need to step on, usually the trick is you have to step on each one without touching the ground. You can fly and grapnel boost and stuff, as long as you don't hit the ground or land on anything except the next pad/button. For the ones where theres pads up on the walls that you have to hit, what you have to do is leap off something high and glide towards the first one, hit it and Batman will like cling to the wall for a second, then if you press and hold A (or whatever the PS3 button is for running/gliding, I guess X) again he'll launch off from the wall and start gliding again, then you can aim towards the next one, hit it, etc.

Oh, and to get in the building with the riddler's hostage

Spoiler:One of the walls should have a green question mark on it, its a fake wall and if you walk up to it you can interact with it and rip it apart to find a door behind it

Just bought this game for my brother's birthday gift, and from what I've seen, more of the same (not a bad thing) and more. Probably going to buy my own copy on account of the "first purchaser" privileges that come with one's own copy.

F*** this game is awesome, I finished the main story tonight but I'm not gonna even talk about it, even with spoiler tags, cos its just too awesome. Still got some side missions, heaps of riddler stuff, and the challenge maps to play yet. Might give the New Game Plus mode a crack too, but I think I'll probably get my ass kicked, cos I suck at countering even when the indicators DO show up (in New Game Plus you get no counter indicators above people's heads).

I probably get more out of it cos I'm a fan of the comics, and its so awesomely faithful to them, its like a fanboy dream brought to life. So many characters, even though some were really just not much more than cameos, but it still set up a few hooks for a sequel. Tonnes of ingame info and bios and background stories though so you wont feel left out if you don't know the source material.

The combat is so amazingly fun, even after playing the whole game, I'm still loving just swooping down into a mob of guys and going at it. Makes you feel like such a badass and theres so much awesome stuff you can pull off so easily. On the other end of the scale the "silent predator" type gameplay where you're using stealth and preying on guys and picking them off one by one is equally satisfying. Usually stealth in games annoys me cos I'm too impatient, but they've just nailed it in this, its so satisfying. And the way the remaining guys get more and more freaked out just makes it even cooler.

I also love the way the collectibles are done, I wish more games would do collectibles this way. So many games I don't even bother going for the collectibles, cos its just a meaningless, mindless treasure hunt with no gameplay value to it, and I don't have the patience for it. The collectibles in this, like the riddler trophies, you actually have to work for them. You have to solve puzzles and think outside the box at times to figure out how to get them, its so addictive, I end up spending hours and hours just going after them. Its also a great balance between exploring and finding them on your own, and getting shown on your map where they are. You'll find plenty just by exploring, and thats satisfying, but it would end up frustrating me and I'd give up if I had to find them all myself. Luckily you can get hints, and get the locations added to your map, but even that doesn't come free, and has its own gameplay value to it, cos you have to find the riddler's informants scattered around the place and interrogate them for the locations. Best. Collectibles. Ever. Kudos to the game designers at Rocksteady.

This isn't just my game of the year, its my game of the decade, I haven't enjoyed a game this much in a very, very long time. Its like they got inside my head, and made exactly the game that I always wanted. F*** yeah.

I truly liked this game, give it easily 10 out of 10, having all the villians in it was needed.it just wasnt as big a game, I passed with within a week of owning it with only a few hours gameplay each night. collecting all the riddles was easy, I found the game easier in Game+ aswell, realised how annoying counter icons became.